The following contains spoilers for Westworld Season 4, Episode 5, "Zhuangzi," which premiered Sunday, July 24 on HBO.
Westworld fans were stunned when Season 4 showed Dolores trapped in the real world as a video game designer named Christina. Her work for Olympiad Entertainment set up a plotline similar to The Matrix Resurrections, with Dolores in the role of Neo. The puppet master pulling the strings was none other than Charlotte, the evil version of Dolores, who had taken over society.
The first few episodes of the season focused on how Bernard was plotting a revolution against Charlotte by finding the seemingly dead Maeve and working with Caleb's daughter Frankie. Yet viewers hoped that Dolores, one of the most beloved characters in Westworld, could be liberated from her alter ego and help stop her villainous counterpart. Season 4, Episode 5, "Zhuangzi" answered that question and put Dolores on the path to fighting Charlotte.
Her realization was sparked by Teddy Flood, who was stalking Christina earlier in Season 4. He also saved her from an "outlier" -- a human who realized she was writing his narrative with Charlotte's mind-controlling flies. Teddy and Christina subsequently went on a date but their conversation changed abruptly the next time they saw one another.
Teddy reconnected with Christina after her boss Emmett began questioning her about making another script that mimicked Charlotte's past in Delos' Western-themed park. A panicked Christina didn't believe Teddy when he told her she controlled the world around her, but realized it was true when she thought of new stories and saw people immediately change their actions. The turning point came when Christina started using verbal commands. The fact that the names "Dolores" and "Charlotte" weren't in the city's mainframe was the icing on the cake, which convinced Christina to pull the city map up and see the "walled garden."
Everything began to make sense and Dolores had an emotional reunion with Teddy, knowing that Charlotte's tower had to be brought down. However, Teddy also confessed that Charlotte was a copy of Dolores -- which will undoubtedly impact Dolores' mental health in the rest of Season 4. Knowing a version of her enslaved humanity is going to weigh on her conscience since she didn't like when humans did the same to her in Season 1.
Yet being manipulated is more than enough reason to go after Charlotte. Dolores also has the aid of Teddy and the Sublime-empowered Bernard. How vicious she becomes in her quest for revenge is anyone's guess, but Westworld has definitively brought back Dolores and put her on a collision course with Charlotte.
Westworld airs Sundays at 9:00 p.m. on HBO.